"Man in a Red Turban"

Jan Van Eyck's "Man in a Red Turban" is a completely secular portrait without the layer of religious interpretation common to Flemish painting at that time. In this work the image of a living individual apparently required no religious purpose for being, only a personal one. As human beings confronted themselves in painted portraits, they objectified themselves as people. In this confrontation, the man van Eyck portrayed looks directly at the viewer, or perhaps, at himself in the mirror. The composed gaze directed from a true three-quarter head pose, must have impressed observers deeply. …